Welcome! You have accidentally reached the blog of a heteroclite follower of Jesus: dave wainscott. I'm
"pushing toward the unobvious" as I post thinkings/linkings
re: Scripture, church and culture. Hot topics include: temple tantrums, time travel, sexuality/spirituality, U2kklesia, role of the pastor, God-haunted music/art..and subversive videos like these.

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Saturday, April 02, 2016

women, artists, outsiders and introverts: strong church leadership

Being a woman can feel like weakness. When you are a woman, your own body teaches you your
limits. From the time you're small, there is always someone bigger, with
a stronger body and a deeper voice. And as you grow, you learn how
little control you have over your own body, from a sometimes painful,
often embarrassing inconvenience that will visit you every month to the
strange season of having a person growing inside of you for 9 months.
When the little bundle makes its appearance, your body goes from creator
of life to sustainer of life. All kinds of new systems kick into gear.
It's a miraculous process but one completely beyond your control. As you
go from mother to grandmother, your body begins to change again,
throwing you into a state of confusion as the steady cycles you have
grown accustomed to become syncopated and erratic and then finally stop
altogether.

If being a woman teaches humility and collaboration, isn't it a strength to be a woman?

Inhabiting this ever-changing form forces you to acknowledge (even
celebrate) your limits and to sense your responsibility to and reliance
upon the broader community.

So if being a woman teaches humility and
collaboration, isn't it a strength to be a woman?

In the church, these are leadership skills.

Being an artist can feel like weakness. If you're an artist, you are spurred on by an
unending search for truth and beauty. You can have your breath stolen by
the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing and be unfit for anything
else but crying or singing or writing about it for the rest of the day.
And once you've found that tiny sign of hope, you must make sense of it.
And so you make things to process and express it, trying to capture all
the feeling and meaning for others through the limited media of notes
and words and paint. You step into a creative process that is sometimes
cruel and raw, a little too close for comfort. Then, with shaking hands,
you put that outpouring of your soul into a public form and hope that
someone understands.

If creative people know how to find truth and beauty, even when it's
hidden in brokenn

ess, if they're comfortable with mystery, failure, and
vulnerability, isn't it a strength to be an artist?

In the church, these are leadership skills.

Being an outsider can feel like weakness. Being on the outside means always having that
vague sense that you didn't get the inside joke. You feel like a child
again as you have to learn things that are obvious and basic to everyone
else. But over time you compensate. You learn not only to speak but to
listen in other languages. You become self-aware as those things which
were once transparent about yourself (back when everyone around you was
the same as you) are suddenly glaringly visible. For the first time you
feel the weight of the lens of your own culture, your own assumptions,
and eventually, you learn how to switch glasses.

If being displaced helps us relate to the ways God's people have always been the sojourners, isn't it meaningful to be displaced?

If outsiders know how to be flexible and self-aware, to communicate in a
relevant way in many contexts, isn't it a strength to be an outsider?

In the church, these are leadership skills.

Being an introvert can feel like weakness. Thinking of the perfect
answer a day after the question makes you feel dumb, even though your
belated but perfectly-worded response is more insightful than the one
given by the quick-thinker in the room. Needing to recover from extended
periods with people draws labels like "anti-social," even though you
may have great social skills. Longing for depth and complexity and
silence makes you feel like a precious egg-head in a world hungry for
sound bites and noise.

If introverts know how to listen, and are unafraid of silence, depth, and authenticity, isn't it a strength to be an introvert?

Dumb disclaimer:

It should go without saying...but i wouldn't want it to... that since this blog is a Spiritaneous place to throw out thoughts/feelings/articles "in process," it does not represent any of the fine institutions you see by my profile that I am affiliated with (Heck, it may not even represent me! (:........). The blog is merely an attempt to subvert subversion and "push toward the unobvious" (Thanks, Tim N. for that phrase) on the six hot topics listed at the top of the page....Welcome, engage it, and don't be offended (for the wrong reason, anyway!)